


The Arch of Light

by wanderingstoryteller



Series: No one ever said this life would be simple [33]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Daleks - Freeform, F/F, Saving the World, Season Finale, The Pleiades - Freeform, Time Babies, Time Grand Babies, child birth, saving the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-04 17:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18609241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingstoryteller/pseuds/wanderingstoryteller
Summary: The Doctor has fought the daleks so many times it's become almost routine. This time is different. This time they are coming for her daughters and all of their worlds.~Season finale for the series~





	The Arch of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the season finale of 'No one ever said this life would be simple' After thirty-three fics I'm honestly starting to run out of ideas. Rather than letting things taper off or just stop updating, I decided it would be better to go out with a bang and finally write the plot arc conclusion fic that I've been sitting on. Hopefully it will be suitably epic. 
> 
> After this, I'll be putting this series on hiatus until the next season of the actual Doctor Who TV show comes out. Hopeful new source material will give me the inspiration I need for a second season of this fic series. In the interim, if I get any bright ideas for news fics I might add one or two. This does not effect any of my other ongoing series.

The Doctor was only mildly surprised to step out of the TARDIS onto the crowded bridge of a Gallifreyan warship in the middle of a heated battle. A huge screen at the front of the room showed an utterly chaotic scene of Dalek ships battling with Time Lord war cruisers and other ships of a make and design the Doctor did not recognize. A beautiful blue and green and red planet turned far beneath them, shrouded in a shimmering golden shield of light.

She’d been expecting to arrive in a high mountain monastery in Nepal and she and her companions were dressed in orange snowsuits. The sight of her second youngest daughter, Vishnu, sitting in the captain's chair barking orders wasn’t particularly startling either. The young woman’s advanced state of pregnancy was a bit startling. The Doctor had seen her only about a month before in her own timeline.

“Mom!” she called out. “Thank the stars, you came.”

Her sister’s Jenny and Shiva helped her to her feet, so that she could greet her mother. Misca was also there, although there was no sign of the twins or the mysterious youngest daughter Cassandra. None of the spouses, children or Jack were present either, likely away in the Pleiades TARDIS dealing with a less epic crisis.  

The Doctor embraced her daughter as best she could in spite of the beachball between them.

Vishnu gave her a long look, “You’re not the version of you who said she’d come, but I’m sure there is a good reason.”

“Tell me what you need darling.”

“Get on the intercom with the twins, they are trying to boost the planet’s defense systems from the center of operations in the capital.”

“What is going on exactly?” asked Yaz as she shrugged out of her parka and handed it to Graham who had offered to take all their heavy outerwear back into the TARDIS.

“Claxio, my fiance’s planet, is under siege by the daleks. Between the Claxion fleet and half the Gallifreyan one we’ve been able to hold the Dalek’s back but we’ve lost a lot of ships and the planet’s defense system is faltering.”

The Doctor seemed more interested in her daughter’s stomach than anything else. She laid a hand on her red gallifreyan robe clad middle and golden light began to spill over her hands. “Oh,” her eyes got wide. “You do know your in labor don’t your dear one?”

Vishnu threw her arms up in exasperation. “No Mom, I completely missed my water breaking and the last several hours of contractions. Of course I’ know I’m in fucking labor. That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is the six billion people down on Claxio who are about to die if the shield wall fails and the daleks destroy the planet. Get on the bloody intercom and tell the twins how to fix the shield! Their good at this kind of thing but you taught them everything they know.”

“Of course sweetheart,” the Doctor kissed her on the cheek and then went to the small screen that Shiva motioned her towards.

Suddenly the entire ship shook. Ryan stumbled into Yaz and they both went down.

“Shiva!” yelled Vishnu from the chair she had reclaimed. “Boost the damn flagship’s shield.”

“On it sis,” yelled the red haired Time Lady from where she was frantically typing at a consul.

  Vishnu was in the middle giving more orders to the rest of her crew when a screen suddenly snapped to life beside her.

Princess Hekate stood on the bridge of her own flagship in full dress uniform. The ornamental sword at her side seemed a bit odd for a spaceship admiral but tradition can be an odd thing. There appeared to be a small fire on a consul behind her that an ensign was putting out with a fire extinguisher.

“Damn it woman. Why haven’t you retreated! I told you to get to safety before the battle started.”

“I can’t go. I’m the president of Gallifrey, I have to lead my war ships into battle.”

“You are twelve months pregnant. This can’t be good for the baby.”

“Being born into a universe where her gene mother’s planet is destroyed won’t be good for her either.”

The princess blinked. “Wait, did you finally just admit the baby is mine?”

In spite of the battle raging around them and another direct impact that made the entire Gallifreyan flagship shudder, Vishnu smiled. “Of course the babies yours you great blood idiot. I don’t recall dragging any other alphas into my bed twelve months ago during a battle induced heat after we forced the Darleks back from gallifrey.”

“Verbally spar later, save the planet now!” barked Jenny from where she directing the ships arsenal.

Across the room the Doctor was frantically yelling through a screen at the twins. They appeared to be in a boiler room to rival all boiler rooms. “Yes I’m serious, reverse the polarity.”  

“Mom, that’s your solution to everything,” said Diana.

“It’s because it works, do it.”

Yaz, Graham and Ryan were not feeling particularly useful as they stood beside the TARDIS trying to keep out of the way of the frantic crew and Pleiades. It was actually Graham who came up with something to do.

“Right, let’s go put a kettle on and bring out some tea.”

“Tea?” asked Ryan.

“Tea can make anything a bit better, Grace always said so.”

So they popped back into the TARDIS and made a bunch of pots of tea. When they started looking for mugs a previously empty cabinet was suddenly filled with a bunch of plastic travel mugs. They filled the mugs and brought them back out with a bunch of biscuits. Everyone seemed grateful.

Yaz was just handing a mug to Misca when Princess Hekate’s screen appeared again. There was a lot of screaming and running going on behind the Princess and no one was trying to actually put out the fires anymore.

“President Vishnu,” she said in a surprisingly formal tone. “I need you to assume control of the Claxion fleet. You know the codes.”

“What’s happened?” Vishnu’s eyes had gone wide.

“The Dalek’s have boarded my ship.”

“Get to an escape pond, I’ll make sure you’re picked up.”

She took off her hat, running her hands through her short dark hair that npw carried premature steaks of grey. “I’m sorry my love, they’ve already cut off the bridge. I’ll hold it as long as I can to let as many crew members reach the escape pods as possible, then I’ve got to blow the ship.”

Vishnu scrambled to her feet, which was an impressive action all things considered. “No!”

“I love you. Keep our daughter safe.”

“No! Please no.”

Distantly the sound of a dalek saying “exterminate” drifted through the speakers.

The transmission cut.

Vishnu whirled and nearly lost her balance. Misca caught her and helped right her.

“Mom! Go get her. Get her now!”

The Doctor didn’t show it, but she hesitated for half an instant. She was reasonably sure that the twins had the planetary shield sorted but what if they needed more help troubleshooting? Still her daughter’s fiance was in trouble and she had to act.

She raced for the TARDIS, her companions at her heels. The instant she was in she grabbed at controls yelling what else needed to be done.

“Ryan, green button.”

“Graham, whack that funny nob.”

“Yaz, twist that dial.”

They hopped a short distant and through the shields of compromised Claxion battle cruiser.

They stepped out into a bridge clouded with smoke. Only the TARDIS’s shields protect the Doctor from the death ray blast of a dalek. She returned fire with her screwdriver, causing the horrific dustbin to being spinning in counter clockwise circle while screeching “etanimretxe.”

Through the smoke she called. “Princess Hekate. Vishnu sent me to save you. Get on the TARDIS.”

They heard her yell back. “Everyone into the glowing blue box.”

Several surviving members of the bridge crew rushed past the Doctor. Ryan and Graham helped get them out of the way and dealt with their initial “bigger on the inside,” surprise.

“You too princess,” called the Doctor. She could just make out the alpha standing at the captains consul.

“I can’t. The crew’s still evacuating. I have to keep life supporting functioning for as long as possible and then blow the ship.”  

The Doctor bolted into the smoke and zapped the consul a few times. “There, it’s blow when there are no more human life signs.” She grabbed the startled alpha’s hand. “Now come on, your mate’s in labor. She might want you there.”

They reached the safety of the TARDIS’s shield just as even more daleks rolled onto the bridge.

“Yaz, turn that wheel. Graham blue button.”

In an instant they were away. They all tumbled back out onto Vishnu’s flagship, most still coughing from the smoke. They were just in time to see a horrific sight on the big view screen. A beam of light pierced through the shimmering golden shield the encased the planet causing it to shatter. The beam of light hit the planet below.

“Fleet, every ship. Fire on that vessel,” screamed Vishnu.

A half instant later a dalek vessel exploded as hundred of bursts of light hit it. It was too little too late. The planet remained but there was a huge blackened section on one of the northern continents.  

Beside her Princess Hekate fell to her knees. “No.”

The reaction of her crew members was similar. A young man sobbed. “The capital.”

Fear tore at the Doctor’s hearts. “Diana! Minerva!”

Yaz grabbed at her arm. “They weren’t...they can’t be. We have met them as old women.”

The Doctor shook her head, unable to stop the tears pouring from her eyes. “That was just a possible future. If...if I messed up they…” She covered her face. No, they can’t be no.”

Yaz wrapped her in her arms, hiding her face against her coat. “It didn’t happen. They are safe. They have to be safe.”

The bridge was utterly silent save Vishnu still giving orders. Even as she spoke she was looking toward she fiance like she’d have given the universe to go to her but she couldn’t leave her post. Very distantly it occured to the Doctor that even though the planets shield had failed, the battle was turning in the defenders favor.

Suddenly a screen flickered on. “Mom,” called Diana. “Mom, you’ve got to come get us. The mini shield bubble won’t hold much longer and everything around us is molten.”

The Doctor gave a cry of joy and rushed for her TARDIS. It was an easy jump down to the planet. They landed next to the the bubble of the twins mini shield where it was floating on a sea of lava. It was a perfect sphere, holding the twins and three other people in a less than comfortable jumble.

The Doctor had to dematerialize the TARDIS around the bubble because there was no way to get them safely out. The moment they were in the TARDIS the energy bubble popped and they all collapsed to the floor. The Doctor and Yaz tried to hug their daughters but they pushed past them to the TARDIS controls.

“No time Mom,” said Minerva. “Your TARDIS doesn’t handle lava well.

With a pained weeze they were back on the flagship.

Princess Hekate didn’t even look up from where she knelt, eyes still staring at the screen. Then she heard her named called by a young voice.

“Hekate.”

She turned in time to embrace the sobbing twelve year old that flung herself into her arms.

“Gigi. How? I saw the capital destroyed.”

The little princess just wailed, clutching at her sister.

“It was.” said Minerva somberly. “We had a small secondary shield bubble that sheltered us through the blast. Gigi was with us because she was helping with the shield. She’s good with that kind of thing.”

Hekate finally raised her head and looked at her. “And my mother, my brother, his wife, my nephew?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Despair filled the princess’s eyes for an instant. Then the girl in her arms began to cry harder and she pulled her closer. Acceptance and resolve thinned her lips and ended her tears. “You saved my baby sister. I owe you everything.”

Distantly they all heard someone on the crew yell. “They’re retreating. Those tin can bastards are retreating!”

One of the members of Hekate’s bridge crew seemed to remember herself. “The queen is dead, long live the queen. All hail Queen Hekate” She bowed to Hekate and this caused a chain reaction, at least among the Claxion survivors. It should have seemed ridiculous, a moment form a bad movie and yet it fit perfectly.

Hekate stood on shaky legs, the mantle of leadership already heavy on her shoulders. “The capital is gone but Claxion stands. The fleet survived. We will rally and rebuild and we till take the fight to those dalek bastards. In the name of everyone they have exterminated, we will destroy them.”

There was an answering cheer, this time from nearly everyone on the bridge, gallifreyans included.

Vishnu suddenly made a sharp cry of pain. She was clutching at her chair, face pale. The Doctor hurried to her side. The Doctor laid a hand against her stomach, sparking a glow of light.

“Your baby can’t wait anymore. She’s coming.”

“I cannot leave this fucking bridge,” she managed through clenched teeth.

Shiva called over from her terminal. “The battle is over. We’ve got this. Go give birth already.”

Vishnu stuck out her tongue at her sister in a very unpresidential like gesture.

“Come on,” said Misca, offering her sister a hand up. “We’ve got to get her to the med bay. It’s set up and we have a obstetrician.

Hekate seemed to finally remember herself and hurried to her mate’s side. She nudged Misca aside to simply pick up her mate in a princess carry. “Which way.”

As they set off, the Doctor paused long enough to yell over her shoulder. “Yaz, Graham, Ryan can you help the bridge crew with the people we saved?”

“Got ya covered. I’ll make more tea.” replied Ryan

Yaz merely nodded. She was currently very busy hugging both her daughters. They might be from the future and she might have never hugged their adult selves before but she’d nearly lost them and she was not going to let either woman out of her sight for a while.

Graham had noticed the now largely forgotten little princess Gigi. He sat down with her, providing a shoulder for the exhausted girl to cry on. He had gotten very good at this sort of thing .

As they walked down the hall, the Doctor asked Misca. “So wait, how do you have a Time Lord obstetrician? There is no such thing.”

“We don’t. My obstetrician, Dr. Lightfoot, agreed to help. We had Jack and the other’s fetch her as soon as Vishnu’s water broke, we figured that the chances of getting Vishnu to the hospital during a battle weren’t good.”

Dr. Lightfoot, who had been patiently waiting in a side room of the ship’s larger infirmary was less than pleased to find how close her patient was to giving birth.

“You should have come back here hours ago.”

“Couldn’t. I was in the middle of a battle.”

“No excuse,” replied the grey haired old woman as she motioned Hekate to set Vishnu down on a hospital bed. She glanced to the Doctor as she began to scan her patient. “Misca says you can talk to unborn babies or some such nonsense.”

“I can talk to born ones too. Their the ones with a lot to say.” The Doctor touched her daughter's stomach, which caused the usual glowing. “Yea, she says she’s in position and ready.”

The medical doctor got an odd look on her face but resumed her exam. “Yea, she is. Okay, Vishnu, You’re almost fully dilated but not there yet. We need to wait just a little bit longer. When you contractions get a bit closer I’ll check again.”

“They feel fucking close,” she replied. Childbirth, like battle, inspired a lot of swearing from the normally dignified woman. Then she jerked her head towards the door. “And where the hell do you think you’re going.”

Hekate froze in the doorway. “I’ll be right outside. It’s not really proper for an alpha to be at a birth.”

Another contraction hit Vishnu and she swore very creatively in gallifreyan. “I don’t know how things are done on Claxio but you damn well caused this and you are going to suffer with me. Get your ass over here and let me mangle your hand.”

Hekate wisely obliged and offered her mate her hand to clasp. She, however, failed to keep her mouth shut. “To be fair, we both sort of caused this.”

Vishnu glared before another contraction took her. When she could breathe again she said. “Yea, but I’m the one in pain so I’m blaming you.”

The next hour involved a lot of screaming and ended with the safe delivery of a tiny bawling infant with lungs as strong as her birth mother’s. The Doctor waited patiently for her turn to hold the glowing baby. Vishnu held her daughter and then Hekate. Hekate finally passed the small bundle when Vishnu began to suffer the pangs of the afterbirth and reached for her hand again.

The Doctor took a chair at the edge of the room holding the tiny Time Lord. she’d met two granddaughters of her own blood before but she’d never seen one enter the world. The sense of awe was overwhelming. She ached to show the baby to Yaz but knew better than to take her that far from her parents or away from the warm room.

The newborn ogled at her with unfocused eyes and sucked on the tip of her finger when she offered one. She smelled of blood, the whole room did, but there was some other wonderful indescribable scent to her, a bit like new car smell but for baby Time Lords. She was so wrinkled, so very pink. No matter how many times the Doctor saw new beginnings she never lost her sense of wonder.

“Welcome to the universe little one, you are going to love it.”

Then Dr. Lightfoot told her to bring the baby back over so Vishnu could try and nurse her. The Doctor did and then she left the young family to bond. She knew that likely the moment that Princess, no Queen Hecate, left the room the full burden of her loss would descend up her but for the moment she was smiling, looking at her mate and child as if they held all the beauty in creation.

She found the bridge considerably less full than it had been only an hour before. Shiva and Jenny were both talking into screens, so was a woman from Hekate’s ship who was likely her second in command. The other Claxions they had rescued were gone, they had likely been shown somewhere to rest. The Doctor made a mental note that later she’d need to ask if they needed a lift down to the planet or one of the other ships.

She saw Yaz and Ryan sitting off to the side on a step leaning on each other and thoroughly passed out. There was no sign of Graham, he’d probably gone with the survivors of the capital to help comfort the little princess. For a man who had never been a father, he knew almost instinctively how to help heartbroken and frightened children.

 

The twins were huddle close to Yaz and Ryan on the same step, speaking very softly.

Everyone stared when the Doctor entered. “Healthy baby girl, six pounds, likely has a voice for either opera or announcing rugby matches.”

That earned a general murmur of weary happiness.

The Doctor went and sat beside her twin daughters. She’d never seen them look so utterly despondent before.

“I know it’s hard. It’s always hard,” she lay one arm around Diana and reached across her to take her other daughter’s hand.

“We failed and eight million people died,” said Diana hollowly.

“You didn’t fail. You held the shield as long as you could. If anyone failed you it as me. I abandoned you both when you still needed help with the shield.”  

“No you didn’t,” answered Minerva. “We were still doing what you’d told us to when the shields blew. Everything looked fine until the daleks used that new weapon. The energy blast was just too powerful, the shield never could have held no matter what we did today.” She always was the more practical twin.

The Doctor felt doubt creep into her heart. Was there really nothing she could have done. If she had stayed on the com could she have come up with something that would have changed things during those few precious moments?  Had she traded an almost unfathomable number of lives for the mother of her granddaughter? She shook her head once, she couldn’t go down this road. It never went anywhere good. She’d made the best decision she could have at the time.

“We should have done something more!” snapped Diana. “There had to be a different way. There’s always a different way.”

“What more could we have done short of magically inventing a new kind of planetary shield? We spent weeks before the siege upgrading that planets outdated system. We gave everything we had,” snapped Minerva.

“Then why are we alive and seven million people dead?”

The thing no one ever warns parents about is that sooner or later they get to watch their children beat their wings bloody against the same cage they have. Seeing disillusionment in her daughters’ faces was as painful to the Doctor as feeling it for the first time.

“Diana my darling,” said the Doctor. “Sometimes no matter what we do, we still lose. All we can do is keep going for the sake of those left behind. You’re shield held long enough to protect the planet, to save all the other cities and people.”

Diana covered her face. “That’s not good enough, not when so many died.” She took a ragged breath. “If I had only known the shields would fail, I could have at least brought more people into the generator room, the shield could have at least held one more.”

“There was no time,” said Minerva softly. “We barely activated the emergency bubble in time.” She was hunched up like an injured animal.

“You did what you could and you saved yourselves and three people who wouldn’t have survived otherwise. One of them was a child. Don’t discount that. Hekate still has a sister because of you,” said the Doctor.

In spite of everything Diana somehow managed to make a face. “I still don’t like that pompous alpha asshole. I’ve no idea how she has such a wonderful little sister.”

She held the face for half a breath and then everything crashed over her again and she slumped against her sister.

Minerva spoke for them both. “Mom, how do you do it. How do we carry something like this?”

“You don’t, not alone. I tried that for a long time and it never worked. You surround yourself with love and that lessens the burden. That’s the only thing I’ve ever found that really works.”

It seemed that they might have a moment of peace. Then the phone on the outside of the TARDIS’s parked TARDIS began to ring. With a deep sense of foreboding, the Doctor stood and went to answer it.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s voice blared out into the room. “Doctor! Where are you? The Daleks are attacking.”


End file.
